Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday December 15, 2012 @01:49AM
from the 25-bucks-(cheap!) dept.

coop0030 writes "The first photos and videos of the Model A production samples are now available. The Raspberry Pi Model A is the newest low-cost computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Compared to the popular Model B, the Model A forgoes the Ethernet Controller, has 256MB of RAM, and has a single USB port. A benefit of the missing Ethernet controller is that power consumption is reduced. This allowed them to reach their goals of a low-cost $25 computer. The release date is for sometime early in 2013."

They should have waited until they could get the cost down with 512MB of RAM. Having used both the 256 and 512 Model B, I found that no amount of tweaking could make the 256 model run a web browser acceptably on a Linux desktop. Modern Linux desktops and browsers have gotten too bloated. LXDE is painfully slow, while KDE and gnome desktops are just downright unable. The 512 model has no such issue.

I'm not sure that disagrees with what I was saying. But no matter, I agree that a slightly nicer model would be nice. I'm just not upset that they released the one they said they would before working on a fancier one.

I know a lot of people have been making noise about wanting a Model C since the beginning. I imagine they'll get around to it, and then people will gripe that it's either too expensive or not as good as their gaming rig.;)